REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Action on Silicon Valley Power Logo Temporary Redesign in Recognition of 125th Anniversary
Report
COUNCIL PILLAR
Enhance Community Engagement and Transparency
BACKGROUND
The City's Electric Utility, Silicon Valley Power will be celebrating its 125th Anniversary in July 2021. It all began on July 23, 1896, when the creation of a municipal electric utility was authorized by order of the Santa Clara Board of Town Trustees. The Town of Santa Clara went to work creating a lighting plant consisting of forty-six 2,000-candlepower direct current lamps and a small dynamo (or electric generator). At the end of October 1896, the electric utility formally entered into service.
By 1903, the Town was outgrowing its system and invested $5,000 to convert from direct current to alternating current, today's industry standard. This switch led to the abandonment of the small generation plant. Instead, wholesale power was purchased from the United Gas and Electric Company of San Jose and, for the next sixty-two years, the utility purchased all its electric power from privately-owned utilities.
In 1965, Silicon Valley began its launch into the high-tech era. After receiving an allocation of power from the Federal Central Valley Project, the utility began to diversify its resources. The City of Santa Clara became a charter member of the newly formed Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) on June 12, 1968.
Throughout the following years, Santa Clara and NCPA worked on behalf of several municipal electric utilities in Northern California. Together they gained access to wholesale transmission markets and jointly developed cost-effective electric generation resources to meet the growing demand for electricity.
Things changed once again in 1980 when Santa Clara launched its 6-megawatt (MW), Cogen No. 1 power plant, making it a generating utility for the first time in seventy-three years. In 1983, the 110-megawatt NCPA Geothermal Project ente...
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